Giant container ships are ruining everything

www.freightwaves.com...

The largest container ships to be delivered this year have a maximum capacity of 24,000 TEUs. (This class of ship is named — I am not making this up — the “Ever Alot.” The Evergreen shipping company, the very same that blocked the Suez Canal last year, ordered the record-breaking ship.)

Each year brings a new, larger-than-ever megaship. The largest ship class of a given year has increased by 50% from 2012 to today, or nearly sixfold from 1981 to today. Massive container ships have helped wreak serious chaos on global trade.

bigger ships, and bigger (and fewer) companies.

Up to 60 of the 100 largest ocean carriers have vanished from the 2000s to today, thanks to a wave of bankruptcies and acquisitions. The top 10 largest ocean carriers in 2000 commanded 51% of the market; today, they dominate 80% of it, according to a White House fact sheet. All of these companies are based outside the U.S.

bigger boats mean economy of scale means lower rates.
but I don't like the thought of a handful of entities controlling shipping, or anything else.

thoughts?
anyone with first-hand insight?

a reply to: ElGoobero
All I know is the worlds' monetary power is rapidly shifting into fewer and fewer hands. Somewhere at the top, some unknown person(s) is calling all the shots, and the next century has already been mapped out.

The Georgia Guidestone used to read as a wish list for the rich and powerful; now it reads as a playbook whose items are being checked off the list at an ever-increasing pace.

a reply to: ElGoobero

You can't be too big to fail until you actually are.
The US let container shipping slide right thru it's hands & fall to other countries. Spilled milk much? If you send all your manufacturing to other countries they obviously have to find a way to get it to market. While shipping companies are consolidating an it's worrisome, the amount of containers lost overboard in transit is staggering.
There's more to worry about than you think.

a reply to: ElGoobero

A consolidation of shipping would indicate, as you said, that fewer and fewer companies are taking part. This leads to a less reliable supply chain. The fewer, larger, ships that are transporting goods means that each ship now has more responsibility to the market. For each ship that gets delayed, damaged, lost at sea, or that is in some other way taken out of commission, more and more goods are left out of the market. This leads to higher prices on the shelves, if there is anything on the shelf at all.

It seems to me that capitalism truly is in it’s late stage, and that it is no longer working to best fit the needs of the many. No longer is someone able to work their way up. No longer is someone able to put in the hard work, and truly succeed. For a market to be working, you need to have equal privilege and opportunity. Otherwise, you end up in the situation that we are in where the few hold it all, and everyone else is left to make due.

originally posted by: andr3w68
It seems to me that capitalism truly is in it’s late stage, and that it is no longer working to best fit the needs of the many. No longer is someone able to work their way up. No longer is someone able to put in the hard work, and truly succeed. For a market to be working, you need to have equal privilege and opportunity. Otherwise, you end up in the situation that we are in where the few hold it all, and everyone else is left to make due.

Yes, it looks like Communism works on a local level, capitalism on a nation level, but we are yet to find a system that works on a global level, to fit how things are really today.

a reply to: ElGoobero

Surely as they get bigger they must be pushing the limits of engineering in steel, these things flex and bend the longer they get the more the effect.

if there are laws to prevent monopolies why arent there international laws to prevent the control of the worlds resources from going to one group or person etc

originally posted by: sapien82
if there are laws to prevent monopolies why arent there international laws to prevent the control of the worlds resources from going to one group or person etc

good question.
personally I think 'International Law' is a joke because there is no International authority.
the closest might be war crimes in Serbia, tried by NATO / UN. (I'm fuzzy on the details).
currently, if Bulkranian businesses steal your patents and market internally, you have to sue them in your own country, and good luck getting anyone to enforce a fine in another country. if the problem is big enough you might get State Department sanctions.

there are international treaties on fishing etc that are enforced by individual countries (in their waters) but I think most of it goes unpunished and unrecorded (Chinese boats off Africa).

That's why they register ships to Liberia and Panama. Lax codes, minimal enforcement.


the one-world movement likes to use things like this to promote their One World Government.

a reply to: ElGoobero

It's alllll going according to plan.

More JIT supply chaining, more globalization, more "interconnectedness".....until the next asteroid impact, or Carrington Event, or Krakatoa.

We should be setting up distributed, independent, self-sufficient (as much as can be achieved) economies to be resilient against "supply chain disruptions", pandemics, war, natural disasters.

But when you centralize everything, then you can "turn off the supply chain" on demand to those who don't fall in line.

Problem being, with a global supply network, Mother Nature controls the circuit breaker, and even Klauss Schwabb and the NWO gang are powerless to control that.

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry